


Stages

by Dancerslife



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-30
Updated: 2014-07-03
Packaged: 2018-02-06 21:45:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1873590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dancerslife/pseuds/Dancerslife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>According to Elizabeth Kubler Ross: When we are dying or have suffered a catastrophic loss, we all move through 5 distinct stages of grief.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_According to Elizabeth Kubler Ross: When we are dying or have suffered a catastrophic loss, we all move through 5 distinct stages of grief._

The day was a normal day. At least for Will it was. The rundowns went the way they were supposed to. The show was shaping up the way it was supposed to and no one from the higher ups were giving him any trouble. It was a good day until it wasn’t.

It started right before the show started Mackenzie was in his ear and he could hear the phone ring. She ignored it and he heard the phone stop and pick up again. She told him it was from London and the only people she knew was in London were her parents.  The phone rang again and the only way he knew it was hers was the light buzzing noise he heard in his earpiece. He ignored it if she did.  

Before he knew it Mackenzie was in his ear feeding him facts, doing her job, and every so often he’d here her cursing her phone.

The commercial break came and went and the next segment came – an alert came through midway and he ignored it, letting it go and made a mental note to check it at the next commercial break. Jim’s voice filled his ear. Apparently Mac had stepped out. 

When the side door to the studio opened, Will expected it to be Mackenzie coming through with an apology for leaving mid – way through the show. She’d apologize and she’d move on.

Only it wasn’t her, it was Jim, and he didn’t apologize. He simply leaned over the desk and said Mac was still out. That Will shouldn’t worry about it.

The thing was, when it came to Mackenzie McHale, the only think Will knew how to do well when it came to her, was worry. It was unfortunate that the woman gave him cause to worry but he did it because he cared about her. He stopped lying to himself a long time ago that despite the change of feelings the feelings were still there.

It worried him when the show came to a close and he still had heard nothing from or about the reason why Mackenzie was M.I.A from the show. At commercial he tried calling her phone but it went straight to voicemail. He called her landline in her office at another and it just rang. No one picked up. He was sure that no one was in her office which was the surprise when he went into her office at the end of the show and found her sitting alone in the dark at her desk with her head tilted back in her chair.

Her eyes were closed and she seemed to be relaxed. He left the door open, light shining in from the bullpen and she didn’t move. He made a move to turn on the lights and it turned out that she was in fact awake.

“I’m awake,” she said, keeping her eyes closed. Will nodded and moved into her office, taking a seat across from her. He kept the lights off and let the door close behind him leaving them in the darkness, hues of green from the door décor and the lights from her office windows.

He sat in silence watching her. Her fingers were wrapped around the arm rests of her chair. Her feet were crossed at the ankle. When they were dating that usually meant she was nervous or upset. Now, he had no idea what it meant. Putting her hair down was something that she did when she was either in control or taking her hair down after a long day. It was rare to have it down when she was out of control. The one thing the woman disliked more than anything was to seem weak. He was a perceptive person and he had been in love with her along time.

“Sloan has hiding out in Don’s office with Don, “Will said, breaking the silence. He hated it more than anything. It was a discomfort.

“Why?”

“The guy she was dating posted pictures of her on the internet,” Will said. “Last I heard she went upstairs and kicked his ass.”

“Good,” she said.

“Did you hear about the kid who wanted to come onto the show to out himself to his parents?” Silence. Will scrubbed a hand over his face.

He got up from his chair and came around her desk, perching himself on the edge of it and looked at her. She was breathing normally, in through her nose and out through her mouth. She parts her mouth just enough and he – no. He can’t. He won’t.

“Mac what’s wrong?”

“Tell me about the show,” Mackenzie said, her eyes opening and her brown ones meeting his blue. Even in the dark they were blue. ‘Tell me about Sloan. Or the kid. Just-” Mackenzie took a deep breath and closed her eyes again. “Just talk to me.”

“Apparently Sloan gave this guy a camera for Christmas,” Will said. “She didn’t know he was going to post them. Last I heard she punched him in the face, kicked him in the family jewels and went on with her night. Rage phase I think Don called it.”

Even in the dark he could see a glimmer of smile.

“Jim had this couple calling him about being in a building that had collapsed,” Will said, crossing his legs at the ankle, his arms behind him. “Wife called said that her husband had been trapped and was able to call her husband and get him on the same line. They weren’t calling on landlines, they were calling on cellphones from the same room. Jim was able to get a trace on the phone and called the cops.”

“Where were they?”

“Not in a collapsed building,” Will said. “And Charlie got a manifest for Genoa.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” Will said when Mackenzie sat up in her chair. She leaned over and put her elbows on the desk. “There’s a code on it for the sarin.”

“Jesus,” Mackenzie swore, rubbing her face. “As if my day can’t get any worse.”

It was then that he saw her. Her eyes wet with tears, a red line around them indicating she had been crying. She didn’t clasp her hands like she normally did if she was stressed out or nervous. She would ring her hands if she was anxious and they were just flat, crossed over the other. Perfectly calm.

Will could tell just by looking at her that she wasn’t focused on anything. That her gaze across the room was just a daze. Her eyes were glazed over, nothing going on. He was tempted to ask what was going through her mind, but – what was the point? He didn’t think she would tell her. Not willingly anyway.

“How’s your head?”

“Hmm?” Mackenzie hummed, snapping out of whatever was going through her head and turned her attention on him.

“You left during the show,” Will pointed out. “It’s not like you.”

“Oh,” Mac said. “Yeah it’s fine. I just – I took a few aspirin. Probably a migraine.”

“A migraine?” Will asked. “You get migraines now?”

If he knew anything about Mackenzie McHale was that the woman, when it came to him she couldn’t lie to save her life. She had this way of letting herself get caught, she looked like a child when she lied to him. She looked broken down and always checked to see if he had bought it. It wasn’t amusing or anything, he just knew her that well.

Mackenzie shrugged her shoulder and tucked hair behind her ear. She clasped her hands and he knew trouble was coming.

“I got a phone call right before the show,” Mackenzie said. “It wouldn’t stop ringing and so I answered it. It was a friend of my parents calling me about my Dad.”

Will prepared himself.

“I should have let it go to voicemail,” she said. “I couldn’t keep my thoughts straight – I was just – it wasn’t going to happen. So I answered and they told me what had happened and I hung up and the show started. You didn’t need me during that first few segments so I called my neighbor back. My Dad had a heart attack.”

McHale was what Will was told to call Mackenzie’s father the first time they met. It was something that he had picked up in Parliament when he was working for Thatcher and all his friends called him McHale, like he was someone in the service. It was a sign of respect when McHale called the guy who his daughter was in love with by his last name. It meant Will had done something right. Not once did the man call Will by his first name. Only if he had done something wrong.

They were dating the first time McHale had a heart attack. A double bypass surgery had been scheduled in London, Mackenzie had requested a week off of work, leaving Will in New York. It had been 14 hours since she had been gone when she called him begging him to come to her, to help her through it. Then like now, he couldn’t tell her no. He didn’t know how.

“My mother found him on the floor,” Mackenzie said, her voice small and childlike. “He was unconscious in his room. He wasn’t – he wasn’t breathing. They took him to the hospital in an ambulance.”

“Mac –“Will started, putting his hand over hers and taking her hand in his. He was overstepping the boundaries. But he had been there the first time when she had hyperventilated and went into a panic attack right after. He knew anything to do with her father would put her over the edge.

“I called my neighbor – she’s best friends with my mother – and I told her I wanted to talk to my Dad.” Mackenzie said, recounting the events of the night. “She said he was out of surgery.”

Mackenzie didn’t need to say any more when she looked up at him. Her eyes beginning to water again, her nails digging into his hand.  She didn’t need to tell him what had happened to her father, but she did anyway.

“My Dad died, Will,” Mackenzie said, looking up at him. “He’s gone.”

Will stood up, her hand still in his. He got her up on her feet and pulled her to him, wrapping an arm around her shoulders as she wept. He could feel her tears through his dress shirt. He hadn’t changed yet. He wanted to find her first and make sure she was okay.

At times in their relationship he begrudged the relationship she had with her father. She was true and true Daddy’s little girl. The man took her everywhere. If he could he would take to her to the moon and back and his adventures with his daughter would still not be complete. McHale was his daughter’s hero. Will never had that kind of role model in his life. That man who he could go to in times of trouble or happiness – John McAvoy wasn’t that kind of man. But McHale took Will under his wing and treated him like his own.

Mac had told Will of a time when she was a little girl. Her father was traveling to another country and Mackenzie in her naïve state of mind didn’t know if her father was coming back. He had promised her that he would come back to her. He’d always come back. Only this time he couldn’t and there was no way of making it right.

So Will held the woman who cried for her father. He held the woman whose hero was gone. It was all he could do.


	2. Chapter 2

_We go into denial because the loss is so unthinkable we can’t imagine it’s true._

Mackenzie McHale refused to acknowledge that her father passed away. Everyone was waiting for her to breakdown, self-implode or to just do something that was normal for someone who was grieving. Instead of going around and working like nothing happened. It made Will wary. The less she talked and the more she pretended the worse his worry got.

The only thing he knew was that McHale was being transported from London to New York and his service was going to be held at St. Patrick’s. Mackenzie refused to leave New York despite the constant offers from Will, Charlie and at one point Reese who offered the company jet to fly her to and from London. But she refused it. All of it.

She said she was fine. She acted like she was but Will knew her. He could see she was slowly starting to crack.  That the denial wall she built when she was done crying was starting to come down. He was going to wait until it did – she didn’t need and or deserve to be alone.

“We need to go to the rundown,” Mackenzie said, knocking on his door. Will looked up from his computer and then to the clock on the wall opposite him. It was eleven, but he didn’t feel like going.

“Yeah,” he said, looking back to his computer.

“Are you coming or are you going to sit there doing whatever it is you’re doing?” Mackenzie questioned.

“Did you know that about five million people go to St. Patrick’s Cathedral?” Will asked, clicking on his computer. He had been looking up things about St. Patrick’s for the past few days after Mackenzie told him where the funeral was.

It was McHale’s preference of place. When she was younger, Mackenzie would go to mass with her father. When she got older, after she went overseas she went to St. Patrick’s once and now she occasionally goes. She said once that it calmed her to go, to sit in the quiet of the church, to listen to the bells toll before the evening mass. And before the mass would start she’d leave.

Out of the corner of his eye he watched her freeze, her fingers tighten against her folio and he knew he caught her.

“When is the funeral?”

“Sunday,” Mackenzie supplied quickly. Four days. “We have the meeting.”

“They can wait,” Will said, standing on his feet. “You on the other hand can’t. How are you?”

“Fine,” she said, putting a hand on her hip. “Can we go to work now?”

“No,” he said coming around the desk. “Your Dad died, Mac. That’s something you can take time off for. You need to rest, Mac. You need to get out of here.”

“I’m fine, Will,” Mackenzie said, turning towards him. She tilted her head to the side. She did that when she was trying to get him to step down. To let it go. But he wasn’t.

“Look at me in the eye and tell me you’re fine. That you can do this job without being emotionally compromised because your Dad is dead.” Will said. Mackenzie looked down at her papers. Will put a hand on her shoulder. “You deserve to take a day Mac. You deserve to take a week.”

“I can’t,” she said, her voice small. “You – if I get – I’m fine. I promise I’m fine. We have a meeting.”

With that she walked out of his office and into the bullpen. Will stood there in the office feeling defeated. She had stopped calling him, maybe it was because there was the idea that Nina Howard was always at his apartment, when in actuality she wasn’t. Sure they were dating but he didn’t think of her as his girlfriend. Just a companion of sorts. Someone to keep him from feeling lonely.

He shook his head and walked out of his office, stormed through the bullpen, putting up a façade of having a bad day. It was only eleven and the way things were going with Mac and Genoa, he had a really good feeling that the façade would be true in a few hours anyway.

Mackenzie knew when she was being watched. She knew when she was being watched by Will. She didn’t want to look up. She knew if she did those blue eyes would be trained on her and only her. That whatever they were talking about was of secondary importance. He always seemed to know when she was having a bad day, or a bad week – whatever it was he knew something was wrong.

He caught her eye once during the meeting. She was doing an excellent job at avoiding him, trying to look at everyone but him. No one mentioned the words death, father, ill, or anything that alluded to someone of importance being dead.  People were throwing side glances at each other every time Mackenzie opened her mouth. No one had come to see Will, to check up on her, to make sure she was okay. They all assumed he would take care of it if she wasn’t.

When he locked her out, denying everything, he didn’t know how. Anytime he’d come close to getting her to talk, something was said or done she’d lock him out. He had gone to her apartment the night she told him about St. Patrick’s with a bag of Chinese and a large bottle of scotch.

They had been fine. Laughing about the last time they had gotten drunk.  He was avoiding mentioning the fact that a week later they had broken up due to her admittance of sleeping with Brian. It seemed like she was doing the same because after a while she pushed her drink away and claimed she wanted to sleep. So he did – he was stupid. He kissed her forehead and said goodnight and then went home, climbed into bed and didn’t sleep.

“You know he told me he was going to kill you,” Will heard about an hour after the show. He had gone out to the balcony and overlooked the city. He turned his head and saw Mackenzie standing there, her arms crossed across her chest as she leaned against the frame of the door.

“And why didn’t he?” He asked, turning around and leaning against the bars, bracing his arms against it.

“My mother convinced him not to,” she laughed. “Plus I may have had a hand in it.”

Will nodded and watched her walk to him and saddle up next to him, leaning against the rail, matching his previous position.

“That was a good show,” Mackenzie said. “Went smooth. No hiccups.”

Will looked at her, her profile in shadow because of the light behind her. He didn’t know if she was doing it on purpose or every time she moved her index finger she was accidently grazing his wrist. She would stop and then continue in a pattern and then stop.

“I talked to Charlie,” Mac said. “I was – he didn’t give me a choice. I have to take a few days off.”

“A week?” He asked. She nodded. “But you’ll be back in three.”

She laughed and nodded. The smile didn’t reach her eyes but the laugh was enough for him. She moved her hand that was at his wrist and tucked stray hair behind her ear. A nervous habit she did.

“I can’t” she began. “I can’t tell – I can’t say it outloud. My mom called me this morning and was talking about the funeral and I can’t – it doesn’t sound right.”

“How is your mom doing?”

“They’re leaving tomorrow,” she said, before checking her watch on her wrist. “Well, in eight hours.”

“Are they coming to JFK?” Will asked and Mackenzie nodded. “I’ll spend the day with you tomorrow. Jerry can fill me in at the five o’clock rundown.”

“Will you can’t -” Mackenzie began to protest. “Jim comes home next week.”

“I’ll be back by then and so will you,” Will shrugged. “I’m going to be gone for the morning and part of the afternoon, Mac. I’m not leaving the show entirely. Let me help you with this.”

He wasn’t trying to control her. To make her think that him tagging along was her idea. It was a horrible idea. It was an emotional test. They weren’t together.

“Your Dad is dead Mac,” Will said. “You need the time off and if you don’t want me to come then fine. I won’t. But you – you need to come to reality that people leave you and they don’t always come back.”

It was because they weren’t together that he said it. It was because they weren’t together that he was stepping over the professional boundary line and stepping into one that should not take place between two co-workers.

“Your Dad is gone Mac,” he said again. “He’s not coming back.”

Mackenzie moved to slapped him and he knew it was coming. Will expected it. He fished for it and she took the bait. He needed to know she was still normal. But he caught her wrist instead and pulled her close. The last thing she needed on her plate was the knowledge that she caused him anymore pain.

“I’m sorry you lost your Dad,” Will said. “He was a good man, but you need to stop pretending everything is okay because it isn’t. You’re not fine. You’re going to self-destruct, Mac and if you keep pushing people away you’re not going to have anyone around when you do.”

“Do you want me to tell you I need you?” Mac asked. “Will that help boost your already oversized ego? My father is dead. Is that what you wanted to hear because I can’t come to terms that my father is gone? I’m sorry you’ll have no problem announcing that your father is dead without any remorse but I’m not like you. I love my father and I am devastated that he is gone.”

She took a deep breath before continuing. Before letting it all out.

“I can’t leave my work because then it will seem real. The walls I have built around me to keep you and the rest of the world out will begin to crumble. They already have. And I can’t – I don’t- I need you to stop – I just-”

Will took her and wrapped his arms around her as she began to crumble. As she began to self-destruct.

She pulled back, her eyes wet. He tucked the hair behind her ear and pressed the palm of his hand against her neck, his thumb tracing her jaw. Both of her hands were pressed against his chest. His other hand was at her hip, his thumb brushing the top of her skirt and damn – he wanted to kiss her.

It was the perfect opportunity too. But he couldn’t and didn’t want to take advantage of the situation. It was her who took a step closer. It was her who tilted her head just enough to be half an inch from his mouth. It was Neal who broke the moment and forced them apart.

“Sorry,” he said, clearing his throat. “Mac, your mom is calling for you.”

“Thanks,” she said, raising a hand to her throat, where Will’s hand was. “I’ll be right in.”

Neal nodded and through an apologetic glance at Will. He nodded his head and the kid was gone.

Mackenzie turned to him and gave him a small smile as well. She took his hand in hers and gave it a squeeze. An apology and a truce.

He wouldn’t go with her the next day. After the show the next night he went to dinner with her and her mother. Her mother did everything she could from crying. Mackenzie sat there emotionless and spoke as little as she could.

But Will claimed victory when Mac mentioned St. Patrick’s Cathedral again, when they walked to her apartment after they left her mother at the Marriott on Times Square. She spoke about her father in past tense.

“He would have loved the food,” she said, standing outside her apartment. “Anyway, have a good night.”

“You too,” Will said, nodding.

He watched her walk into her apartment building and he lit a cigarette as he walked back to his car that sat at the end of the block.

Baby steps was what it was going to take. Hand holding and being told everything was going to be okay, for Mackenzie McHale was needed.

He waited until her lights went off and his phone lit up from an incoming text message.

_I’m fine. Thank you for dinner. – M._

Good enough for now.


	3. Chapter 3

_We become angry with everyone; angry with survivors, Angry with ourselves, then we bargain._

The call came at a quarter to four in the morning. McHale had long since been buried, the funeral had been over for months and his personal effects that belonged to Mackenzie had stopped coming. It had been a few days since the last package came and arrived on her desk.

She no longer locked herself in her office at night and left the lights on. She no longer buried herself in her work until three in the morning when she finally went home. He stopped finding her in her office asleep on a makeshift bed she made for herself using her office chairs and blankets. And the late night phone calls stopped all together. He didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

He figured it was a bad thing when his phone rang at three forty-five in the morning and he was actually asleep. His generally worry for Mackenzie kept him up at night. He was either awake with worry or the worry would put him to sleep out on his terrace and he’d get woken up by the sun coming up over the buildings.

The call was a courtesy call from the security guard downstairs.  It was a call saying that Mackenzie was on her way up. He took it as a warning call that he should mentally and physically prepare. There was a brief thought that he was dreaming but the elevator chimed and he heard her yelling for him, proving that idea false.

“What the hell?” Will asked coming out of his bedroom. 

“He promised me he’d never leave me,” Mackenzie said, throwing her purse onto the couch then moving onto unbuttoning her coat. “He left me a long time ago.”

“What are you talking -” Will began.

“My father,” Mackenzie spit out like it was poison. “He changed. He wasn’t- the man who my mother and I buried was not my father.”

“Mac sit down,” Will tried. He reached out for her and she shrugged away.

Will took his hand back and took her coat from her instead, hanging it on the back of the couch.

“He didn’t understand why I came back,” Mac pointed out. “Why I decided that coming back to you was a good idea.”

“Why did you come back?”

“I needed a job,” she said quickly. “Dad said I didn’t need you. He thinks you did something – he thinks – thought, he thought you pushed me away.”

Will bit his tongue at that. It was Mackenzie’s choice whether or not to tell her parents about the real reason they broke up. It was her decision to make and to live with. She went overseas to distance herself from him. If she didn’t do it he would have. The idea that they’d meet up again in New York once upon a time unnerved him. Now it didn’t seem so bad.

“He wanted to kill you and I wouldn’t let him,” Mackenzie said. “So you’re welcome for that.”

Will bowed his head in thanks. McHale was a tough man. He wanted the best for his daughter and Will thought that he once was. At least in McHale’s eyes.

“He wanted me to move back to London,” Mackenzie said, pulling open the sliding glass door, stepping out onto the balcony.

He let her stay out there for a minute by herself, letting her collect her thoughts. He turned on the lights in his living room, the only light now coming from the other buildings from the ones across the street. He picked up the throw blanket someone had gotten him for Christmas the previous year off the couch and threw it on Mackenzie’s shoulders when he joined her.

“He was – I hated lying to him,” Mackenzie said. “Every time I wanted to I couldn’t. Even that didn’t make him happy. Do parent’s just like to mess with their children and hate everything they do?”

“Most parents, yeah,” Will said, agreeing with it.

“Not yours though, right?” Mackenzie questioned. “You didn’t need to try to impress your parents. You’re just impressive.”

“My dad didn’t care what I did.” Will pointed out. “Nothing I ever did was good enough for him. Since my mom died I don’t care about impressing anyone but two people. The rest of them can suck it.”

Mackenzie laughed and shook her head, tightening the blanket around her shoulders.

“I could never hate my father the way you do yours,” Mackenzie said, shaking her head. “I can’t understand – fathers do not provoke your children to anger. Good a lot that did, right? You ever think that maybe your father is proud of you and you don’t have to try so fucking hard to get his approval?”

“It’s not like that with us, Mackenzie,” Will said. “You know that.”

She turned away from him and went to sit on the chair that he had out. She sat and lifted her feet like he had done endless amounts of times, resting her heels on the metal bar, leaning her head back looking up at the stars.

“People love you and I wish you saw that,” Mac said, turning her head towards him. “The audience loves you but so does the staff. They wouldn’t be up at all hours of the night putting together a show that ended up in the trash because some rookie thought it would be a good idea to edit the raw footage.”

Of all the things that needed to end up on Mackenzie’s already full plate, Jerry Dantana getting fired was not originally on the menu. When Mac first introduced the kid to Will, he honestly didn’t remember him. He wasn’t impressed with him the first time and wasn’t at all intrigued with him the second time. Especially since Jim decided to join the Romney campaign with no real reason other than he wanted to go and Mac was okay with it.

“My head hurts,” she moaned once she was settled and Will was sitting next to her on the floor. “You’re going to kill your back down there.”

“I’m fine,” he said. “You want something for your head?”

“No, I’m fine,” she said. “It’ll pass.”

Will nodded and turned back to the lights of the building across from them. It had to be on the other side of four by now. Nearing the halfway mark. The work-aholics who liked to come into work early were probably starting to come in, turning on the office lights. He used to be one of those people. Can’t sleep go to work. Don’t want to go home? Stay at work. He wasn’t allowed to do that anymore.

“Where’s Nina tonight?” Mackenzie asked. Her voice a lot softer.

“Home, I’d imagine,” Will said. “Don’t really care.”

“No?” Mac asked. “I thought you would.”

“We broke up Mac,” Will said. “You know that.”

Mackenzie shifted, curling her knees under her, her head curled now at a weird angle so she could look at him.

“I thought I had gone through all the stages of grief,” Mac said. “I wanted to kill Dantana today. I would have done it too with my bare hands.”

“I think we all wanted to after the retraction,” Will said. “The staff all ended up and Hang’s for drinks.”

“That’s where I started,” Mac said honestly. “Then I went home.”  

The one thing about Mackenzie McHale was that the woman did not get drunk alone. She got drunk around people in the case something happened. He had found her in the dark with a bottle of scotch once, at the beginning of their relationship and with the knowledge he knew now – it was around the time she left Brian for the second time.

Tears were in her eyes. Her eyes had been lined in dark red, her cheeks pink and wet. She hadn’t told him what happened that night but she woke up the next morning with the worst headache and vowed never to do that again. She hated the feeling. She wanted someone to stop her the next time before she drank half the bottle away in a night.

“Did you drink at home?”

“I wanted to,” she admitted. “I came here instead.”

Will nodded.

“Does this grieving thing ever stop?” Mac asked. “Does it ever really end?”

“Eventually you’ll stop thinking about him,” Will said. “It was about four years after my mom passed away that I found myself asking when I had thought about her last. The worst part of the whole thing is when you think you’re done, the minute you think about it, it comes back and it starts all over again. The anger, the denial, the bargaining. It all comes back.”

She hummed her approval. She looked comfortable at the odd angle. He tilted his head to look at her. He brushed hair away from her face as her eyes slipped close. The adrenaline of the night finally catching up with her causing her to crash.

Mackenzie uncurled herself in the chair and slid it back, sliding to the floor to sit with Will.  She draped the blanket over both their laps and rested her head on her arm.

“I shouldn’t have told him about Genoa,” Mackenzie said. “I can just add that to the list of things I shouldn’t have told him about. Like you and Brian having a pissing contest in the newsroom. He had no idea who I was talking about. Either he didn’t care or he wasn’t listening. I should have tried harder. Going to Cambridge wasn’t enough for him. Falling in love with someone wasn’t good enough for him. He always expected more. I should have been more for him.”

“You’re fine,” Will said, sitting up on his arms, crossing his feet at his ankles. “He’s proud of what you’ve done, Mac.”

“No he’s not,” she denied. “The man I buried wasn’t my father. My father didn’t belittle me every chance he got. He wouldn’t have constantly reminded me that the man I loved was no good for me. That my job in the long run meant nothing and the awards I got for them weren’t enough to prove my worth. My father would have been proud and that wasn’t the man I buried. I don’t know who that man was.”

“Just –“Will began when truthfully he didn’t know where else to go.

“Sit with me,” she requested. “Just stay.”

He couldn’t deny her so he sat. He sat until the sun came up. Until the alarm on his phone sounded and he was forced to wake her. Her body would ache throughout the day but the fact that she got more than a couple hours was a small comfort. The knowledge that she would actually be able to function on the few hours of sleep comforted him.

Mackenzie McHale could never really be angry at her father. She was picking out ideas, random tidbits of information that she had locked away in the recess of her mind to use as argument points. But they failed her. Her hero was her father. The man she idolized was her father. Everything and anything she ever did was because of her father. Her toughest critic was herself because her father was who she wanted to be. Wanted to be like.

Mackenzie McHale could never be truly angry at her father. She had more love for the man than she did anyone else possibly including herself. The man was outstanding, Will would not argue with that. But what he could argue was that his daughter was more impressive than he ever was, despite the appointment of US ambassador by the Prime Minister, or the other accolades he had received throughout his life.

Who could be angry at that?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I literally had three or four various drafts of this chapter written and I don't like any of them. 
> 
> Let me know what you guys think. I appreciate your feedback and kudos.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> According to Elizabeth Kubler Ross: When we are dying or have suffered a catastrophic loss, we all move through 5 distinct stages of grief. We go into denial because the loss is so unthinkable we can’t imagine it’s true. We become angry with everyone; angry with survivors, Angry with ourselves, then we bargain. We beg, we plead, we offer everything we have. We offer up our souls in exchange for just one more day.

_We beg, we plead, we offer everything we have. We offer up our souls in exchange for just one more day._

Will sat in his office alone, cigarette burning in its ash tray untouched. Leona had denied their resignations. Leona refused to let them go. Why? It was the question Will kept asking himself. What was the point? The audience was lost, the viewers were angry, and the ratings that they had were now going to Nancy Grace or anyone else reporting on the election.

Everything was done right. The story was plausible, factual, the math just didn’t add up right and no one caught the missing exponent.

Will scrubbed his face and paused when he heard the scraping against the far wall. He shared walls with Mackenzie. And if he listened close enough every so often he could hear here yelling at someone. For a moment it was silent, then he heard a thud and a curse and it got him on his feet.

There was no one in the newsroom. The staff had long since gone home. The broadcast went well. Will had gone up to see Rebecca right after it ended and then up to Leona. When him and Mac came back down there was no one here except a new intern at the overnight desk.

Mackenzie had her hands above her head, bringing down notebooks from her shelves. Already on her desk was a half packed box, folders most likely already in it.

“What’re you doing?” Will asked, leaning against the door jam.

“I’m going to quit,” she said. “Quit or you’re going to fire me.”

“If you quit Leona is going to sue you, Mac,” Will said stepping into her office. She hadn’t packed much. They hadn’t been down there long. He took a notebook out of the box and set it down on the desk. “You still keep notebooks?”

“Of the shows? Yeah.” Mac said, taking the book from him and put it back in the box.

It was how she kept organized. She refused to throw anything away. Every draft of every rundown she kept. All her notes from the pitch meetings, the articles, all the meetings with the other departments, it was all in the binders.

He took another binder out of the box and couldn’t help but smile. It was the BP story. Her writing was on the label on the spine saying what it was. The story and the date. It was like that for all of them.

“I’m not going to fire you, Mac,” Will said. “I’m not going to fire you and I’m not going to let you quit.”

She paused for a beat before reaching out in front of her and taking the books off her shelf. Books he had no doubt were colored in the inside with marked passages in highlighter. Various colors meaning various things.

After they had broken up he found one of her books in the closet. She had written a little key on the inside of the book. Pink was important, yellow was to be written down, green was neutral. She would decide later. She had a process for everything and where she picked it up he had no idea. But it worked for her. It kept the show together so he really couldn’t argue with it.

“Where would you go if you quit?” Will asked, playing with the idea that she was going to leave again.

“London,” Mackenzie said. “Spend some time with my mom. Help her finish going through things of my fathers.”

Will put the notebooks on the chair next to him, making room for the others that he was going to unpack for her. He wasn’t going to let go of her that easy. Not again.

“I’m just going to repack those when you leave,” Mackenzie said, taking the box off the desk and throwing it to the side. “You’re wasting your time.”

“Do you honestly think that this will fix what happened to your Dad?” Will asked. “Quitting a job he didn’t approve of you having to pack up his things into boxes?”

Mackenzie stopped and looked at him. “I don’t know. But I need to get away from here for a while. I’m ruining people’s lives.”

“No you’re not.”

“Is that what you think?” Mackenzie asked. “Can you honestly tell me that Genoa isn’t ruining your career?”

“Yes,” he said with little thought. “I agreed to Genoa, Mac. I knew the story and I knew the risks we were taking. But I felt like the story had to be told. We had all the facts that we thought we needed.”

“Yeah but-“

“No buts,” Will said shaking his head. “There are none of those. Leona Lansing won’t take our resignations. Jerry Dantana edited raw footage. Your Dad died. It’s things that happen. We learn how to deal with it.”

“What if I don’t want to?” Mackenzie asked. “What if I just want to – I just – I need a vacation. I haven’t slept in weeks. I want to go home.”

“Go home and come back,” Will said. “Go home to your apartment and in the morning come back.”

Mackenzie shook her head. “I can’t.”

Will went around her desk and took her wrist, pulling her away from her desk. He took her hand and took her out of the office and stood with her in the bullpen.

“You and I met over there,” Will said, pointing to the clusters of desks by the doors that led to the control room and news desk. “I asked you out over there and you found out you won your first peabody right here.”

Mackenzie said nothing. She bit her lower lip and said nothing.

“We have our best fights in that room,” Will said, pointing to the conference room. “You make me better, Mac. You help me fight for whats right and if you leave, whose going to do that?”

Mackenzie opened her mouth and then closed it again.

“You have a staff who will stand by you no matter what you do,” Will pointed out. “You leave and you’re leaving them.”

“Trying to guilt me into staying?”

“Is it working?” Will asked with a light laugh. “This is what you’re going ot be leaving behind, Mackenzie. If it’s not the people it’s the work. You love the work. So by packing up your office, telling yourself you’re moving to London is a temporary fix, but what happens when you’re done with your Dad’s stuff and the jobs you’ve applied for in London fall through? Then what?”

“I’d figure it out,” she said. “If you’re done.”

Mackenzie walked away from him and back into her office. She hit the lights and came back out with her purse. She was in the middle of the newsroom when he stopped her.

“Going to London isn’t going to bring him back,” Will said. “Changing your profession because he didn’t agree with it isn’t going to bring him back. Nothing you do will bring him back.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” Mackenzie shouted at him. “I know my Dad is never coming back. When I can’t call him I’m reminded of that. When my mom calls me instead of him I’m reminded of that. I just want to go to London because I miss him. Is that such a bad thing?”

Will bowed his head. She had him there. He couldn’t force her to stay. If she didn’t want to stay he couldn’t stop her from going and getting on a plane.

“Friday,” he said, stopping her again, getting her to turn around. “After the show you and I will get on the first plane out of JFK and go to Heathrow.”

“What?”

“You want to go to London? Fine you can go to London but I’m going with you,” Will said. “Grief comes at its own time for everyone in its own way. So I went from denial to being angry to depressed to bargaining when my mom died almost every day. I drank when I was depressed. I hit baseballs when I was angry and when I bargained I got drunk and called my father blaming it all on him. It made me feel better. Now, you’re angry. Now you’re trying to bargain with god and you think if you quit your job now he’ll come back. He won’t. The only thing you have left of him is memories and pictures. That’s all you have and that’s all you get. It’s harsh but true. Blame Dantana for your anger. Blame Dantana for your depression. Blame anyone and anything for whatever you want, but leaving a job you love with people you’ve come to care about is cheating.”

Mackenzie stayed quiet. She stayed quiet while he gave her his mind. She was starting to change in front of his eyes ever since her father died. She became holed up, less talkative, and less – she wasn’t herself.

“You love facts, Mac,” Will said, going on and going to her. “The fact is if you leave I won’t be held for my actions. The fact is if you leave you’re letting down an entire group of people who look up to you. The fact is I’m still in love with you. I tried not to be but it didn’t work. So go to London. Don’t go to London. It’s entirely up to you.”

He stood there in silence for a beat before walking away and into his office. He was getting his bag when she came storming back in.

“You left me,” Mackenzie snapped at him. “The day you thought it would be okay to take anti-depressants with alcohol. Were you trying to kill yourself? Did you finally realized _then_ that bringing in Brian was a bad idea? He wasn’t going to write a positive article about you and you knew it. You knew it wasn’t going to be positive and you still had him stay to punish me. That was when you abandoned ship and stopped fighting for what we wanted. You left first.”

The keys in his fingers burned. The small one that opened up his top drawer that held her engagement ring was inches away.

The moment had passed when he heard the sound of her hitting his door open. He wasn’t even sure she heard him admit to her that he was still in love with her. He was exhausted. He had the meeting with Rebecca and the thing with Leona. The last thing he wanted for the night was to find a way to talk Mackenzie into leaving. He didn’t want her to go.

He would have to fire her if she wanted to leave and then he’d be off the air for three years. Three years of who knows what. He didn’t want to fire her. But at the moment she gave him no choice.

Will jammed the key into the drawer and yanked it open, pulling out the ring box and shoving it into his pocket. He slammed the drawer and grabbed his briefcase.

If that was the game she wanted to play, fine. If she wanted to play cat and mouse fine. Her staying was no longer up for negotiation. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading and thanks for the kudos.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading


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